The ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.13.14

Tonight, I worked on Mill Street over in LaSalle as well as the parking lot for the train station there.

The ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.12.14

The ROCK's CEO was out of commission the last two days with dental issues.  A root canal later and I feel much better.

Well, nothing was worked on the layout the last two days, I did manage to clean up the room.  That is a chore in itself.

Today, I painted the insulators on sixty or more telephone poles.  I plan to have some wires up in the Ottawa Avenue area before the next op session.  I know a few fans of the layout/blog will be happy.  Added just that little bit of detail makes these really pop.  Oh, by the way, these are Showcase Miniatures 30' poles.

So, this evening, I worked on the layout for quite a bit.  I wanted to get the static grass done, then added some bushes, a few trees, the new telephone poles, weathered up two more lots, a few signs.  It is quite addictive.  You just want to keep adding more.  My daughter came back upstairs.  She was like "Whooooooooooooooa Daddy!  You did all this while I was downstairs?"  Yeah, man!  

Check out all the work at the entrance of LOF.  I completed the static grass in the area, added a line of bushes along the left side, a few trees, a sign with some overgrowth around it, weathered the lot and added some cracks.  I'm loving it!

I got a little heavy handed on the weathering powder, but I still think it looks good.

Box Cars being loaded with automobile windshields.

I really like this scene.

An overview of Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF)

An overview of Ottawa Avenue.  I completed the static grass in the area, added weathering on the LOF parking lot in front of their shop building, add the control box by the grade crossing, added telephone poles.  I had to redo the fenced in area for the water tower since I managed to screw it up applying the static grass.  The shop vac didn't help either.  Damn tornadoes.  

Looking north to Ottawa Silica.  Pay no attention to the crap on the tracks.  LOL.

Ottawa Avenue Crossing.  Check out the painted insulators on the telephone poles.  

Here comes the sand job pulling a cut of sand hoppers south.

Pretty new power for the Rock.  Those GP38-2s are looking great.

I really like my Burlington truck and trailer as well.

The new telephone poles look great.  Time to run some wire.

The parking lot at the LOF Shop Building.

The newly rebuilt water tower lot.

The "Sand Job" is pulling a cut of cars from LOF now.

The "Sand Job" pulling north toward Ottawa Avenue.

An overview of LOF shop building.

I need to fix the window.  You can see my sensor for the grade crossing in the window.

The lot at the Water Tower.

The ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.09.14

Not feeling the best tonight (dental issues) and working with my daughter on her homework prevented me from continuing static grass tonight.  I did find enough time (five minutes or so) to construct the chain link fence (from the former gas company on v1.0) around the water tower at South Ottawa Silica.

I really like this scene.  It will look better when I paint out that big brown blob on the backdrop.  

I painted this tonight.  I need to weather it down a little more with powders.

This will look great when I finish the static grass around the fenced in area.

I have put my friends on notice, I'm having my first root canal on Thursday.  Don't let me do anything while drugged up like switch to HO scale or something crazy like that.  :-)  Although one friend says he does his best work post-dental surgery high.  LOL!  Thursday's update may be interesting.

The ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.08.14

Tonight, I worked on the gravel lot around the water tower as well as some static grass.  My friend Steve Holzheimer taught us all how to do this with his homemade "Grassinator".  I must say the results are outstanding!  Much more three dimensional.  I completed some of the area around Ottawa Avenue this evening.  It makes a heck of a mess, but nothing the shop vac can't clean up.

The grass is a little wild around Ottawa Avenue.

I'm really liking this scene.  It's one of my favorites on the layout.

I stopped up at the second turnout on the right side.